In 2016, Tom Ford told the Financial Times that he was “determined” to turn his namesake beauty, eyewear and fashion company into a $3 billion business by 2025.
It didn’t quite make the mark, but it was close. On Tuesday, the Estée Lauder Companies announced that it had acquired the Tom Ford brand in a deal that values it at $2.8 billion. The sale is poised to make a billionaire of the 61-year-old Ford, who made a name for himself transforming a near-bankrupt Gucci into a fashion powerhouse before launching his eponymous company in 2005.
It could also signal Ford’s departure from fashion. Zegna has agreed to expand its license for Tom Ford menswear to include womenswear, children’s clothing and accessories, while Marcolin has “substantially expanded” its license for Tom Ford eyewear, ELC said. But Ford and chairman Domenico De Sole only agreed to stay until the end of next year.
“He wasn’t willing to get involved for more than [the end of 2023]”, says a source familiar with the negotiations. “He is no longer interested in fashion.”
Friends and former colleagues say Ford’s interests long ago migrated to Hollywood, where he directed two critically acclaimed films, A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016). Based in Los Angeles since 2017, he stepped down as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America in May. “There is not much grace in [fashion] more,” he told the FT in 2016. “It seems to have escalated to a point where there isn’t much respect for the designer. And that’s really sad.”
“I feel like it has ‘made’ fashion. What else could I have to try? says Whitney Bromberg Hawkings, who worked with him for 20 years. “It’s the sexy exit. He is not holding up.
Ford’s celebrity long ago transcended the insular world of fashion. His impeccable grooming, daily routine and uniform of white shirt, dark tie, gold brooch and double-breasted suit with peak lapels are fascinating. Former employees describe him as “incredibly demanding”, “anal in everything”, “silly”, “funny”, “incredibly witty”, “kind”, and “the hardest-working human being in the world”. He breeds fierce loyalty, many of his employees working for him for decades.
“Tom’s huge success stemmed from the fact that he was as fabulous and movie star-like as anything he’s ever designed,” Anna Wintour wrote in an email. “His own personal brand of him has always been as attractive as the houses he’s worked for, yet behind all the glamor is an incredibly hard-working man with a wicked sense of humor who is the kindest, most loyal friend.”
“He’s motivated,” says Steven Kolb, who worked with him at the CFDA. “You can’t be Tom Ford and sell a business for $2.3 billion. [in upfront payments] if you are not sure what you want in life.”
Ford was born in Austin, Texas in 1961, the son of two real estate brokers. His interest in his fashion manifested early: his classmates teased him for showing up to school wearing a blazer, loafers, and briefcase. Ford moved to New York in 1979 to study art history at New York University, dropping out after a year to pursue acting in Los Angeles. He returned to enroll in an interior architecture course, but quickly moved into fashion, working at the sportswear label Cathy Hardwick and then at Perry Ellis with Marc Jacobs. In 1990, he moved to Milan to design womenswear at Gucci and was promoted to creative director four years later.
His fall/winter 1995 collection heralded a glamorous new direction for a serious leather goods house mired in financial crisis. Ford’s status as fashion’s “it” designer was cemented when Madonna appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards in one of the collection’s central looks.
By 2004, Gucci had become the Gucci Group, and Ford presided over a $10 billion portfolio that included Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Stella McCartney. But contract negotiations with the group’s new owners, the Pinault family, soured and Ford left that year. The day he found out he and Gucci were breaking up, he took Hawkings to see “Love Actually” in Leicester Square at noon, where “we cried like crazy,” he recalled.
“I had no voice in contemporary culture,” Ford recalled of that time. “I had such a powerful voice in the ’90s and an identity that I worked so hard to achieve. And all of a sudden I didn’t have that, and I didn’t really know what I was going to do.”
She rented an office in Chelsea, where she laid out the plans for a blue-chip beauty business that she launched with Estée Lauder to much fanfare in 2006. Her first fragrance, Black Orchid, became a bestseller; More followed, along with lipstick, priced at $48 at the time, and a full range of makeup.
“It’s been done phenomenally well,” says Lana Todorovich, president of luxury retailer Neiman Marcus. “He brought an idea of glamor [that was missing in beauty].” Licenses for eyewear and menswear followed, and in September 2010 Ford returned to the runway to present his first womenswear collection.
By the end of the decade, the Tom Ford brand expected an annual turnover of $1 billion. But the pandemic took its toll and forced the company to lay off and lay off staff. ELC said it expects the brand to hit the $1 billion net sales mark “within the next two years.”
The pandemic was also difficult for Ford personally. Richard Buckley, her husband and partner of 35 years, passed away after a long illness in September 2021, aged 72. Together they had a son, Jack, by surrogacy 10 years ago.
“The world knows that Tom is a perfectionist, that he has impeccable style, that he is a designer,” says Diane von Furstenberg. “He is the Marlboro Man of fashion. He is also, moreover, an extraordinarily kind human being.”
Source: news.google.com